


When Doves Cry

by EwanMcGregorIsMyHomeboy12



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: 8x05 Sucked So I Wrote This, Angst, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Jaime Lannister's Ulterior Motives, Pregnancy, Smut, Valonqar Prophecy, post 8x04
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-16
Updated: 2019-05-16
Packaged: 2020-03-06 05:29:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18844585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EwanMcGregorIsMyHomeboy12/pseuds/EwanMcGregorIsMyHomeboy12
Summary: In which Brienne of Tarth rides South and the winds of winter follow her to King's Landing.





	When Doves Cry

The farther south she rode, she continued to expect the bite that hung on the wind to lessen. For it not to sink beneath her armor, deepening the aches in already tired joints, layering the saddle bags with a thin layer of frost every morning as they tied them to the horses. But the cold lingered. The snow stopped piling as high, the trees they passed still shaded the colors of autumn instead of the already-browned colors of winter, the small farmhouses and inns still buzzed with soft laughter and smelled of ale. The cold promised that would change.

Unlike her and Podrick’s first journey north, this one was far quieter. Podrick was different, held himself with a different confidence, but alongside that was a kind of quiet she had not truly seen from him. He squirmed on his bedroll at night, when she stared upwards at the cover of the tent that the Lady Sansa had lent them for their journey, sometimes he screamed. Part of her wanted to comfort him, to say that she knew exactly what he was seeing behind his closed eyes. But she didn’t want to insult him or insinuate that there might be a lingering softness beneath his hardened armor and newly-grown beard, so she left him be.

The same dreams came when she closed her eyes. The cold came, deeper and darker than even the Northern winds now, it brought with it a creeping frost. As the bodies of fallen comrades and faceless soldiers and people so long dead that their skin hung off of their ragged bones in graying clumps came around her the cold settled on her skin. Froze her in place and the thick mass of them swallowed her voice until their was not point in screaming and their was only blood and ice and then nothing.

Only, it wasn’t nothing.

She avoided going to sleep before Podrick for fear that he might hear something he ought not know. Every dream, every night, ended the same. He came. Cutting through the mass of bodies and shapes and figures around her until she could reach his arm. His hand, metal and freezing to the touch gave her an anchor to pull herself free. The ice would splinter where it had wrapped around her joints and the scene changed. They were in her rooms at Winterfell, with a fire and furs and bare skin and mulled wine and that was the only difference. That sometimes they would be on the bed, other times standing pressed together, other times simply standing. And his face, scarred and beautiful and hers would be looking back at her.

But the heat from the fire never reached them. And as soon as she felt she could settle into the softness of that, the dead came crawling form the outside and overtook them. Tore through the walls, tore down the curtains and the bed and the fire and grasping hands tugged at his body until they pulled him away from her. Then she screamed for him to stay. With all the power left in her chest, all the pain that was so real, she screamed after him until she woke up to Podrick flailing on his own bedroll and only the earliest hints of dawn showing.

When they had still been at Winterfell, the only hint of her dreams had been the growing circles under eyes at breakfast each morning. The mounting silence as Lady Sansa did not ask about his whereabouts because she seemed to think that she knew the answer already. The walls of Winterfell were not silent, they echoed with the sounds of voices preparing for the still-coming winter months, with mothers and children reunited and lost fathers who’s bodies were ashes spread to the trees. She knew that Lady Sansa knew, could hear the hesitation behind her questions each day, as if afraid she might mention it. They lived in shared grief of loved ones lost: All but one of Lady Sansa’s siblings had ridden South and the Lady of Winterfell had been swept into her role as keeper of the castle with no time to grieve their departure.

Her intention had been to remain with Lady Sansa at Winterfell. Aid and protect her as the long night lingered, but after nearly two months of their quiet dance, she had woken to strange feeling. Her dream had shifted. As they appeared in her room, he leaned his head down, the crown of his head with the thickening strands of grey at eye level as his hand, instead of touching her face or anchoring against a bare hip, had been spread over her stomach. Soft, gentle, so light she could hardly consider it a touch at all and wouldn’t if she hadn’t committed the feeling of his calloused sword fingers to memory against her skin. When the dead came that time, tugging him away, her stomach burned where his hand had been. The only heat she could feel as the cold closed around them again and the darkness swallowed them again. She had woken to the turning of her stomach, and before she could do anything else, had vomited thrice into a bucket near her bed.

The pieces were not difficult to connect, in her own mind or in Lady Sansa’s. A brief confirmation from the Maester had seen them eat a private lunch of rabbit stew in an otherwise empty Great Hall. That afternoon, she had begun to gather supplies to begin their journey. 

“Why are we riding south now, Ser?” Podrick had asked her that afternoon, carrying out the saddlebags to the horses that Lady Sansa had lent them.

“Lady Sansa has agreed to release me from her service, at least for the time being, in order to fulfill other demands placed on me.”

It had been enough of a non-answer that Podrick had realized she did not want to talk about it. If she was being fully honest, she was not entirely certain where they would be going. South, that much was certain. But to follow him would be to follow him to a battlefield plagued with slaughter and fire and blood and the thought of it, after having survived so much in the North, that they would be killed in the South was almost unspeakable. It had been the reason, and she suspected Podrick had realized, that he had not been knighted after the Battle of Winterfell. If he was bound to her by contract, he would remain with her. An annointed knight would have been part of the Dragon Queen’s army and the thought of Podrick dying out there, after having served her so faithfully for so long, in a fight by a woman who seemed none too keen on keeping her allies close, was too much to fathom.

The other choice was to return to Tarth, where her again father would undoubtedly be grateful to have her back alive. She would, soon at least, be the Evenstar in her own right, despite not having seen Tarth for many years. Tragically, she thought, she might be carrying the future Evenstar south with her also. She could return home, bear them there. Ask for a legitimacy decree when the war closed and the blows dealt by families such as these softened. But to go home to Tarth at the moment felt like the ultimate betrayal, even if it meant that for the first time in centuries that the Evenstar would be born under a different set of stars, far away from white sand and beaches. If the pair of them survived that long.

They left while the sun was still high in the sky, rode far enough to stop at an inn that first night. Left before dawn the next morning. Traveled until hard dark. And so it had been for close to a month. They had crossed through the Riverlands, past the evidenced encampments of Dragon Queen’s army. They would reach them soon, if they were not careful. How far away was he? Had he changed his heart again on the road south and joined the troops? Had that been his intention all along? To ride with his brother?

She wasn’t sure if she hoped that were the case. If she hoped that long, cold nights spent on and off the Kingsroad for him had let him think that he belonged on the battlefield again. Or if it were worse to hope that he had turned around and ridden back to Winterfell, only to find them gone again. Or if he had been intercepted by the Army on his way back to his sister. Or if he had made it all the way to the Red Keep, golden and proud and reclaiming his Lannister birthright by her side.

“One of the stablehands said he saw Ser Jaime come through here, Ser. Recently.” Podrick had been bridling the horses one morning as they packed to leave. He said it casually, but she knew he was waiting on her reaction. “And the innkeepers wife gave me these for you. Said to mix them with milk.”

He handed a small baggie, filled with crushed herbs. Reflexively, her hand went to her stomach, unable to feel under the armor where the small bump was hardened under skin. Podrick had stopped fixing the horse then, turning to her with cheeks reddened by the early morning wind. “Do we have a plan, Ser? For when we find him?”

She stayed silent, gripped the baggie tighter and tighter in her hands. Podrick spoke again, pressing gently, “If he knows about the babe…”

“We will worry about that when we arrive, Podrick.”

He had nodded obediently and finished situating her saddle, placing the little baggie carefully alongside the rest of their provisions. Before they left, she noticed that he had gotten a little skin of milk and placed it in the bag with the rest of the food. When they stopped for lunch, she had swallowed them carefully, trying not to feel too touched by Podrick’s satisfied smile that he tried to hide.

Finding the Dragon Queen’s camp had not been hard. With the wind coming from the north behind them, the smell had thankfully been largely masked. But the Stark and Targaryen banners were unmistakable, even at night, flying proudly over tents. It hadn’t taken them long to find out the information they needed to know.

Lord Varys was dead, the Dragon Queen sailed to them from Dragonstone. The siege of the city would start the dawn after her arrival.

Jaime Lannister was in chains on one side of the camp. Far away from her, at least until the morning. 

 

 


End file.
